To wonder why it feels like we have no money?

[Wheredoesitgo]

DH and I earn well between us. We aren’t mega wealthy or even close but we should be very comfortable and I just feel like we aren’t.

I just feel like we have no money? DH is self employed and had a tough few months last year and the tax return coming up isn’t helping but even month to month my earnings just seem to disappear with not a lot to show for it…

Would love to go away (2 primary school aged DC) but a week in Spain in July (just before school holidays by a few days to try and reduce the pride a bit!) is coming in at around £1100 plus each for a week AI (we spend less this way with the kids than self catering usually as they are fussy). They need spring/summer wardrobes but feel like I can’t really buy new and can only afford bundles on Vinted which I never find exactly what I want.

I dread the food shop as there’s just no way to get it cheaper.

I’d love some new boots but can’t justify the cost.

As I said we earn quite well so it just seems crazy to me that things feel so tight - anyone else in the same boat?!

Children's extracurriculars, recreational shopping for clothing, decor, housewares, sporting goods, dining out, multiple phones/gadgets per household, holidays, pets/veterinary bills, subscriptions, etc are all things that people used to live without.

If you're spending on any of the above, they all are discretionary, as are many foods now considered essential.

It's your choice whether to save or indulge. We actually need very little to live. Your child could benefit for a lifetime as much by learning to garden on £50 a year as by playing football or having video games.

You're living like millionaires on a family budget. Not only your family but you are supporting another family. You need to change your mindset really.

The car dealers were probably pissing themselves with laughter when they agreed to that deal.

You don't even know what car it is? Your comment makes no sense.

Sorry I can’t recall if you are fixed in now and for how long but I think maybe you need to look further into your mortgage situation - there are many deals out there at the moment for 4.5% ish, (you said you had a good amount of equity) yours has jumped enormously and you must be on a much higher rate. Have you explored all options to reduce this, mortgage advisor, done all your own research etc?

I agree with a previous poster that it’s impossible to spend big on all the main spending points (unless mega high earners). We went for the big house and big-ish mortgage, with renovation costs. I also chose to be a SAHM so the compromise is a cheap car, no foreign holidays, we don’t eat out really, no gym, beauty treatments etc. But we love our house, the area, schools etc we have no childcare costs and we live a full simple life with friends and family. We also need to do big pension contributions to cover us both. (We will be looking at going abroad soon but will need to save for this and find a good deal)

I’m quite shocked at the car finance comments. Not because I think it’s a good use of money (it’s not, was largely DH pushing it). But because lots of people I know pay more than that actually, I didn’t think we were an anomaly for that but on here we seem to be!

Food for thought.

@Wheredoesitgo I would take the comments with a pinch of salt. PCP is one of those things that gets a lot of negative comments, usually from people who know very little about it, people who compare it to renting a house but it's made sense for us over the years. Not saying your car and payment is definitely appropriate for you given your situation, depends where you want your priorities to be, but I just wouldn't ask that question on MN. Do the sums for yourself and figure out what you're comfortable with.

But in the old MN cliche it sounds like you have a DH problem, and that you're not aligned in your financial goals. He's where you need to start.

Why must you go abroad every year though.we had a couple of trips abroad S a child ,have been a handful of times as an adult. Kids cost a lot! Just school hols,uniform and so on .you say you have no money but 400 for a car!.trim your costs a little, a holiday in uk .tent or caravan cottage.maybe see if you can get a cheaper car .life is expensive .

Why must you go abroad every year though.we had a couple of trips abroad S a child ,have been a handful of times as an adult. Kids cost a lot! Just school hols,uniform and so on .you say you have no money but 400 for a car!.trim your costs a little, a holiday in uk .tent or caravan cottage.maybe see if you can get a cheaper car .life is expensive .@

@EdithStourton - agree with a lot of that, I don't know whether it's generational or just general attitude but a lot of people consider things you've mentioned as needs or essentials rather than wants.

Add in the fact that people seem to think sharing bedrooms is akin to child torture and you have people like the op who 'needs' a 4 bedroom house. They 'need' a £400 a month car to be reliable etc.

Although we did actually have a Christmas tablecloth back in the 80s, we used it on holiday with my parents in 2021!

With car payments, you're paying for depreciation and maintenance costs. We work on around £1-2k per year - between us we have a small car and a bigger car and drive them both according to need.

Currently the small car is likely to cost quite a bit less than that as we'll keep it until it dies, but under £1000 pa for those costs and the big vehicle, which is actually a small van, maybe slightly more but not horrendously so, say around £2.5k pa. But that means we're running two vehicles for less than the cost of your £5k pa for one. What's your plan when the finance ends? Can you keep the car without paying any more or is it one of those deals where you have the choice of paying a lump sum, carrying on payments for another car, or hand the car back and end up with nothing? If you can keep the car without a payment, that would be good as then you can run it for a while as you save up for another one and it might also free up money to go on holiday.

Car finance can be a 'not bad' option but unless you have a lot of money, you can't run a spendy car and go on holiday and have regular expensive days out and buy your lunch rather than taking leftovers and spend a lot on your appearance and eat out regularly and have lots of subscriptions and do all the other consumer things that use up money.

You have to pick and choose and prioritise and it sounds like your DHs wants are getting a lot of the priority at the moment. He's got the car payment for the expensive car, he gets all the TV subscriptions, he gets to not bother budgeting, he gets to pop to the shop for his treats whenever he likes and sod the rest of you. If he cut back even a bit of his indulgences, it would free up money so the family can go on holiday, so you need to make it clear to him that this is going to happen. It's also him that's paying a big child support payment every month but it's probably a whole other thread about whether that comes out of family money or his personal money.

Pool all your money.

Review all your expenses and cut back where possible.

Pay for essentials such as his tax, pension contributions, mortgage, bills, food, travel, all child related expenses, savings for annual and irregular expenses etc including a holiday, basically everything that is a family expense rather than you or DH personal spending.

Then split what's left 50/50 between you and him and he needs to learn to only spend his share of the budget, instead of currently what sounds like most of it.

@ZimbleFox if you ever read the step parenting board you’ll know that everyone on there does in fact think we need a bedroom just for SDC lol, and our own 2 are boy/girl so can’t share as they get older

Thank you. This is a really good post.

You’re completely right about DH, and even though my salary is less I feel like I’d do better financially without him…

I just don’t think he’s going to change his habits. He’s become more reckless as we’ve gotten older (mostly linked to being self employed too) which means things like a remortgage just wouldn’t be possible at this point in time.

I don't know where people get the money for huge car payments from either - I can only think they've paid off their mortgages and that's why.

You know there are specialist mortgage companies for contractors/self employed. If you've got three years of self employment history you have options but you need the right contractor broker.

I've used one - they were great. Compared to a regular mortgage broker who told me I should get 'any' permanent job and it aloud be better than my contract salary!

Just mentioned to DH I’m going to look at getting rid of the car… he was far from impressed and doesn’t think the payment is too much lol. Gosh we’re in different pages

I think home ownership is really expensive and a luxury. I am continually spending money on my house. Not to make it fancy but because things break. New oven, new fences, new things for the kitchen as they had broken. I have old plates from the 80's. Hand me downs.
So I think it's houses, kids and cars that are (lovely) money pits.
So life and food is just very expensive at the moment.

I think you need to arm yourself with a completed budgeting spreadsheet to show him all the facts, sounds like he’s in denial and needs proof that you can’t afford it

on the food shopping issue, I think you should have a weekly budget for your big shop (I find easier to do online) then give him a budget for top-ups and he needs to stick to it, eg £20 a week. But give him an incentive- we drop the excessive food spending and car and we get a nice family hol in July. Sounds like you’re treating him like a child but he needs to get with the programme and work as a team on a joint budget. He also needs to share the mental burden about worrying about the budget and money too

Just mentioned to DH I’m going to look at getting rid of the car… he was far from impressed and doesn’t think the payment is too much lol. Gosh we’re in different pages

But OP you can't just declare you're looking at getting rid of the car (firstly, it might not be that simple if it's recent) but mostly, you need to work as a team, you shouldn't be dictating to each other what you're spending money on.

You need to sit down together, declare all income, in my opinion a true partnership requires it to be pooled and shared but others will disagree (and I admit it's more complex when there are previous children) but however you do it, you need to jointly decide your priorities, be that car, holiday, days out etc.

The way we do it is to segment our money, we have a Leisure fund (which covers days out, birthdays, fun money basically), Christmas, holiday, car fund etc, you get the picture, we see what we have left after necessary spends, and divide the money between the pots depending on our agreed priorities, and then what is in each pot determines what we can afford to do. I plan those pots over a 12 month period. Might sound anal, but despite being a 6 figure household that's how carefully I have to watch our money if we want to do the things we want to do without frittering it away.

The difference is tho when we were kids we didn't expect to go bowling like hardly ever? I think I probably bowled maybe 5 times my entire childhood and it would all have been for someone's birthdays. We didn't do 'days out' on weekends, weekends were for relaxing at home, getting jobs done that mounted up through the week, the washing, the supermarket shop, the cleaning and tidying. We probably did a day out perhaps once every year or two?! As a massive summer holiday treat.

Whereas now people seem to think it's a normal expectation to do regular days out to farm parks, amusement parks, attractions, theatre, cinema, bowling, meals out.

Nobody used to expect to do this really?

Completely agree - but DH will never be on board. He doesn’t agree with pooling our finances and never will unfortunately

Completely agree - but DH will never be on board. He doesn’t agree with pooling our finances and never will unfortunately

This is a wider problem than just money, it is a fundamental problem with your relationship, which will only get worse if it's not dealt with. If he will not change, you need to decide what you want from life, because you're not on a shared path right now.

Car finance is essentially you putting extra money towards the car company's profits - that's how we have always seen it. We both lived through one financial crisis after another as teens, so have always been super-cautious with money and with making commitments to spend out each month e.g. for a car.

Small expenses really tot up. A takeaway every weekend is going to be £40-45 for two. That's almost £2k a year. That sort of thing needs to go into any budget you calculate.

Also, I think @Gottastoppostingsomuch makes a very good point. I did similar with my DH about his coffee habit. He was burning through a good £100 a week on coffee and sandwiches - up to £5k a year.

At the very least, you need to sit him down and say look, a living standards crutch affects most people to some degree and we're not immune.

As others have said, show him the detail.

What's his solution? Is he going to push for a wage rise and contribute a higher amount to the family pot? Is he suggesting you earn more?

Financial conversations always hard - my dh hates financial detail too and I do all the planning and you have to push them into the weeds and make the trade offs clear from time to time.

But OP you already are pooling finances. If you, the lower earner is worrying about his tax bill. Its just massively favouring him.

If you can't do a joint account then if i were you i would take over the running of the finances. Tot up what he needs to give you every month to pay for his fair share of all these. Split all family/share bills either 50:50 or proportionally and let him manage his own spending and tax etc.